I Walk Alone
by Joel182
Summary: Randy Orton says no, but no one says no to Daniel Bryan. A story of friendship. Randy POV. SLASH WARNING! Enjoy :D


**DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED FOR WWE AND VINCE MCMAHON. I ONLY OWN THE PLOT. **

**Okay gentle readers...Enjoy :D**

* * *

There was a time.

There was a time when I had friends.

There was a time when I stood on top of the world.

There was a time when I lost it all.

It was at that time, that he found me.

* * *

"So that's the story Randy." I stare almost wide-eyed at Vince trying in every possible way to remind myself that this wasn't 2009, and I wasn't holding a grudge. "I think you'll find it to be very beneficial."

Beneficial? That has to be the furthest word from my mind right now. None of what Vince is suggesting sounds remotely beneficial. Except the last part. The part where I get to unleash hell. That sounds a lot more appealing to me.

"Anyways, you don't really have a choice in the matter" Vince states with authority.

Of course I don't have a choice. I never seem to ever have one. Not even in my choice of career. Then again, that was no one's fault except my own – blood's thicker than water is what they always say right? It's even evident in the fact that ever since I could walk, wrestling has been my sole purpose in life.

"You've been floundering lately. I mean I understand you don't really work as a good guy per say, but that's not all." He knits his greying brows together. "It's like you have no motivation, no drive at all these days."

I couldn't say that was a lie. I mean the last time I put effort into this was back in 2009 when hate was all that fueled me. But this isn't 2009. Its 2013. And that hatred is long gone. All that's left now is the bottomless void that – no matter what I toss into it – refuses to be filled.

"Guys like CM Punk" Vince states with his harsh tone "those guys have motivation. They wanna be the best in the Universe. But you?" He shakes his head for a moment, "It's been ten years now, and I still have to ask you what is it that you want?" He leans closer, bracing the desk with his elbows. "What do you want Randy Orton?"

April 25, 2002. All I wanted to do was put on a great show. I just wanted to last more than five minutes against Hardcore Holly. Back then, I wasn't even thinking about a victory. I can't even say for sure that such a wishful thought had ever crossed my mind. However, I went out there and I pulled out every bit of wrestling I had flowing through my veins. And I beat Hardcore Holly.

" To tell you the truth Vince" I throw on a cocky smirk, "I've never thought that far ahead. Not once."

"I see." He leans back in his over-sized chair. "In that case, I guess the benefits of this will only go one way."

* * *

John takes a seat beside me on the locker room bench. He leaned forward to allow the bag of ice to rest squarely on his neck. Condensation immediately took place the second the cold ice touched his over-heated skin, and in no time at all, drops of water began their descent down the curve of his neck and shoulders. I watched for a second before returning to lacing my boots.

"That bastard Ryback." John spoke through the grit of his clenched teeth. "Dude's a real life monster."

I scoff lightly to the vivid imagery that flashed across my brain of John being body slammed into the mat having been suckered in Ryback's play. "He did a real number on you huh?"

John sits up momentarily and looks at me with a stern face, "You think?" He chuckles shortly before driving the ice further into his neck hoping it would be able to pierce his skin and reach the damaged muscle.

My eyes wander coolly back to him as I think about all the abuse that one neck has suffered over the span of a decade. It starts with the year 2007. I lost count of how many times I made John forcibly eat the floor with an RKO. However, it was never anything serious until I ripped apart his pectoral muscle. But in true John Cena fashion, he came back stronger than ever…until he ate Batista's power bomb.

In wrestling, there will always be that one injury that sticks around like a splinter lodged in the brain. Shawn Micheals and the casket match that tore out his back. Triple H and the ripped quads that was thanks to a misguided Pedigree atop the announce table. Me and my broken collar bone. And Cena and his broken neck. These injuries, they're like having a bulls-eye planted squarely on us telling every new opponent that we are weak here. Right here.

I've always hated that knowledge, because it reminds me that no matter how much I love this business and no matter how much I want to keep doing this forever, fact is, I'm only human. Every day since my collar bone injury I've been able to see this giant clock ticking away ahead of me. Telling me with each movement of it's three hands that I have a limited time left before all my piling injuries finally take me down. Guys like Ric Flair used to talk lot about that clock. But then again, guys like Ric Flair have no choice but to ignore it and keep on lacing up the boots, because life costs money. However, when guys like Shawn Michaels come by and say they've seen that ticking clock…I can't help but reflect on mortality. I wasn't going to be able to do this forever, and I've been able to accept that fact. At one point, I thought of making it a goal to fix the locker room, and help usher along the younger generation, so that when my clock stops ticking, I've had made my mark in my beloved line of work.

I think that's all I ever wanted. To make my mark. To be that good a guy. Then again, I'm probably just grabbing at straws here, because…well…none of my noble intentions seem to fit with why I've agreed to partner with Daniel Bryan.

"Orton" A man calls in from the door "You're on in ten."

* * *

It was around the time of Evolution that I first got to sleep in my own bed in my own hotel room. The group was a cash cow that made each member rich beyond their wildest dreams. And I was young enough to spend the majority of that richness on getting high and being a slut. Triple H would always scold me on my behavior and try his best to give me advice. And I'd always tell him that when I got older I'd change. I'd be responsible with age.

In my own view – and maybe in the eyes of a choice few – I've lived up to that promise, but its worth nothing when nearly every friend I used to have are not here to see it with me. My becoming more responsible with age came with a hefty price, probably because I did all the wrong things. I never apologized. I was arrogant. Always angry. And as much I cared less about me, I cared even less about them. Looking at it now, I've not yet fully matured. I'm responsible enough to not beat someone to near death as part of a bet, or abuse drugs because I liked flipping the bird to upper management, but inside I can still feel that hollow space that refuses to be filled.

"I think it's a mistake Daniel." Kane spoke from behind my broad shoulders.

"You're always looking at the negatives Kane." Daniel chimed in with his slightly upbeat tone of voice. "This is what builds a tag team. We used to do this a lot when we first started out." The sound of his bag hitting the floor nudges me a bit out of my shock. "You don't have to be so upset just because I pulled the shortest straw and beat you."

Kane scoffs, "Trust me Daniel, I am nowhere envious of your predicament. Who I'm worried about is Randy."

I can feel their eyes on me, goading me into responding or reacting in some way. It's Kane who steps forward to look over the brim of my shoulder and see the deadlock shock sitting on my face. To his wondering eyes, I turn to look at both men – nearly hitting my shin on the edge of the tiny bed.

"What the fuck is this?" Flies from my mouth with no real direction.

Kane folds his large arms, and backs away a bit – bumping into the closed door as he does so – while Daniel throws us both a smile.

"This is team building Randy." Confusion tangles into my anger. "You, Kane and I are part of a team, and since you nearly ripped our heads off for the hugging session in the ring a while back, I figured this would be our next best option."

My eyes fling daggers into every direction as I take a quick look around this 'next best option'. To begin with, this was a motel. Not even a hotel…a motel. I could easily have lived with that, but then Bryan gets the idea to book us all in an eleven by four one bed room with a door less wall bathroom and one tiny box window. I probably could have even lived with that – maybe if I closed my eyes long enough – but then the goat face ups the ante by having us draw straws so as to figure out who sleeps on the bed. Normally, this would have been something I could have swallowed, but Bryan adds a twist. Kane is the only one who draws a long straw, which means Daniel and I have to somehow share this one-half of a bunk bed.

"Not on your fucking life." I curse harshly under my breath as I go to collect my suitcase.

Daniel steps in front of me to block my path. My ire begins to seep onto my face. "I understand this makes you uncomfortable Randy, but trust me, it worked for Kane and I. I mean, we're two grown, heterosexual men but at the drop of a hat we can easily hug it out in the middle of a ring while being watched by millions around the world." He smiles beneath the thicket of his out-of-control beard. "Think of what it'll do for you and me when we team up?"

I cringe noticeably to the very idea, "I don't give rat's ass how you and your boyfriend over there made your relationship work" Kane frowns at me through the mask. I ignore him, and instead lean closer to Daniel "but we are not sleeping together. If you want us to look more like a team, just stay outta my fucking way."

Daniel sighs heavily "You just don't get it Randy." He stares at me with empathy stuck in his light blue eyes. For a while I brace myself for another one of his winded speeches about team nonsenses, before my eyes glance to Kane – catching him as he opens the door to leave.

In that instant, I slowly start to straighten up to say something to the deserter, before a pair of hands wrap around my shoulders and neck, and drag me down just long enough to be stopped by having my own lips slam into Bryan's.

From an ironic distance - seeing that in this small room there was no space for distance - I hear Kane mumble "Good luck."

* * *

As I sat sailing over the top rope, I had a moment where I began to wonder how my life had gotten to this point. Not the point of me sailing over the top rope; I had been at that point since day one. Rather, the point I wondered about was the point where I had so much hate for someone

A time line rapidly constructed itself within my mind. I thought about the night Triple H and the legend Ric Flair walked up to me in the locker room and said "Kid, we want you". Without even a thought I jumped on board the idea of forming a cohesive team with two of the business' greatest. However, in a short while I found myself thinking on the negatives. Negatives like how could I ever live up to their expectations? How would the fans see us? Would they even give me a chance? Or would I get lost in the shadows of these walking legends? I had a lot of headaches within the course of a week, but then Dave Batista got signed and immediately I sourced my way to stand out within the group.

Ric was never in love with the idea. As far as he saw Evolution, it would be him, leading to Triple H, leading to me. Sort of like my third generation family lineage – grandfather, father and son. 'Where would Dave fit?' is what he always stumped me with every time I brought up the idea of bringing Batista to our team. For a long while I thought it was a lost cause until Dave himself walked up to us one night and simply said 'Evolution isn't a one way street'. Triple H agreed. If he was the byproduct of Ric Flair's teachings, then by all rights the byproduct of Triple H could never be narrowed down to just Randy Orton. The Game had a ruthless side – a side so animalistic it strayed far from human – and Randy Orton did not represent that. But Dave Batista did. He optimized The Game's darker self, and with that, I had another young guy in the group to use as an aid to stand out.

I awoke to find myself staring at Dave after the official unveiling of Evolution on RAW. His eyes were focused keenly on Triple H's World Heavyweight Championship. I wanted to go up to H and tell him, warn him that I had made a grave mistake. That Dave Batista was no team player. He just wanted that leg up into the Championship stratosphere. I would have told H all this, had I not realized that my eyes were also staring at the gold with a lust I could almost taste.

Evolution was bound to fail the day it launched. Team mates don't think with an individualistic mindset. Team mates think with a collective brain that only does and wants what's best for the team. I knew this from my Dad's many stories, but on that night a crack in the team of Evolution slowly made its way down the fault line.

By the time my shoulder popped to the force of being flung to the hard floor, I had yet to figure out how I got to that point. That point where my hatred grew tenfold. Evolution was a team of individuals who thought and acted as such. Ric was looking for a glory binge. Triple H wanted lackeys. Batista wanted the gold. And me? In the beginning, on that night two legends said "we want you", all I wanted were friends. True friends. However, as I walked away clutching my injured shoulder – trying to hold it in place – I stood in the damning knowledge that for years now, true friends…I never really had any.

* * *

The bit of sunlight that came through the window did nothing to brighten this dark closet of a room. However, it served a purpose to tell me that not only have I overslept, I had overslept in possibly the most uncomfortable and awkward position in the history of mankind.

By the time I stopped contemplating on the origin of a near six year hate, my eyes cracked open fully expecting to see the results of last night's dispute. The one where I threatened death to Daniel Bryan if he even thought of sleeping beside me on this prison cot of a bed – where even with just me, space was limited. However, and completely without reason, my soon to be tag team partner had apparently waited until I fell asleep (the only logical explanation seeing that had I been remotely awake Daniel Bryan would have been laying six feet under) and then promptly done what I specifically told him not to do.

Hence the predicament in which I woke up to.

For a few seconds all I did was lie there staring at the bits of face that clambered from behind an untamed beard and an undisciplined head of hair, trying desperately to find some form of footing upon which I could place my train-wrecked mindset. Despite being the son of a legend, I still had my fair shares of traveling horror stories to tell. One of them – quite a favorite with Ted and Cody for reasons unexplained – was the story of how my one best friend in John Cena and I got stuck in a locker room shower together. The story goes that John decided to play a prank on me by hoping into the shower with me while I tried to wash off. The shower itself was nothing more than a tiny little cut out in the tiled wall, so we barely fit in there. However, John laughed all the way to the bank the more I cussed and tried to avoid contact with the grimy walls. Some other joker outside heard the commotion and decided to bolt the stall door from the outside – locking us both in the make-shift sauna for a good ten minutes before we finally managed to collectively busted down the door. Three hundred dollars and a two week fear of locker room showers later and John and I had one of the funniest stories to pass on to the younger guys who needed to relax every once in awhile. Or the very least, John could do the passing. I swore it to secrecy.

To the point of right now, me lying next to a sleeping Daniel Bryan – whose arm is strewn over the rise of my shoulder and left leg is tangled over my foremost shin –will never be a funny story. Especially with what happened last night. That's right. That random kiss. It isn't like I haven't seen two grown, heterosexual men kiss before – I had seen it back when I had watched from my TV Shawn lean over and plant a big one on his then lackey in Triple H – but never, ever, ever, ever in a million years did I even foresee me playing H's role in something like that. Had it been John who pulled that kind of stunt, I'd probably be a little more forgiving seeing that – like Shawn and Triple H – we were best friends. However, Daniel Bryan is just some kid I got sidelined with on my forced quest of self-discovery.

After the initial shock of seeing another man mere inches away from my face, lying on the same bed, had worn off, I immediately spring to life, and like a puppet on strings, amble my way out of the bed while flooring reverse. The action stirs Daniel who squints a bit to the trickle of sunlight that's made it all the way here, before sitting up halfway to smile at me.

"G'morining Randy."

"Fuck that!" I shout angrily "What the hell are you doing?! I told you not to climb into bed with me!"

Daniel stares with some hint of perplexity deadlocked onto the pieces of his face that aren't forested by unruly hair. "We're building good team spirit Randy. Being uncomfortable around your partner hurts the team."

"The hell are you talking about Bryan?!" I bellow in ire, "And don't fucking call me partner! I'm not your partner!" My mind spins about itself in an effort to gather rapidly overflowing thought processes, "And what the hell was that last night?"

For a second Daniel looks to be heading to that bucket of perplexity, before sitting up fully to show me it was all just a front. "Oh the kiss?" He states nonchalantly, "I had to break the ice, otherwise you'd never be comfortable around me."

"Break the ice?" Confusion lashes over my expression, "Are you nuts? You scared the shit outta me, and now I wake up to find that you've slithered into my bed!"

"There is no me or you Randy." The words only fuel my bewilderment "It's our and we remember? We're a team."

"We are not a team Bryan." I speak dryly in a cold tone. "I don't team with anyone, especially closet gays who kiss me and then climb into bed with me against my will!"

Daniel sighs heavily as he pushes off the sheets and stands to his feet. It's only now that I wish I had at the very least fought Vince against the idea, rather than taking the new changes in the uncaring attitude that had become almost second nature to me.

"Why" I speak through a held breath, "are you naked?"

Daniel merely glances down the length of his body before looking back to me and smiling. "I only carry the exact amount of clothes I'll need. That way I'll wear everything I own and never have anything wasted."

At this point all I'm seeing is red with blocks of censorship patched in the right places. This feeling isn't on the same scale as 2009, nor is it remotely close to the scale of 2007, but it's up there all right, because my hand's shaking to knock the teeth right down Daniel's throat. But that would mean getting close to him – and I know all too well what happens when I get close to this weirdo.

"Anyways," He chips in unaware of my murderous thoughts, "do you want to shower first?"

I glare at him as I try in earnest to bring my boiling blood down to a cooler temperature.

"Alright." He shrugs as he bends to look through his suitcase. I turn my head away as my eyes drop to a close. I can feel my jaw clench and unclench rapidly in an effort to glue me to the floor. "I'll go first."

The little man walks over to the bathroom, and immediately steps into the shower. Despite being door less, the shower at least has a curtain, which allows me to open my eyes without the worry that I'll be blinded once again by the sight of a naked, male coworker. Not wanting to risk it, I look to the bed ahead of me and clearly see the spot where I lay clothed and goat face lay stark naked. My head automatically tilts to the ceiling as I force the rushing blood back down.

* * *

Despite having been my friend for years, this wasn't exactly something I could just walk up to John Cena and talk about. For that matter, this wasn't something I could walk up to anybody and talk about because one, they'd laugh me to scorn, and two, they'd think I liked it that way. After all, it's a well known fact that ever since Shawn Michaels pulled that unscripted stunt on his friend Triple H, pretty boys – as we're classified – must be in some shape or form batting for the other team.

When Batista and I formed a team within Evolution, people backstage would talk about how our unnaturally close friendship had to be the byproduct of a relationship beneath the sheets. The talks aggravated me, and outside of his own selfishness, might have been one of the reasons why Dave didn't even flinch when he dropped me to the ground and helped the rest of Evolution beat me to a bloody pulp. The same talks plagued Cena and I (and the locker room shower incident didn't help any), but John always laughed it off and let his hard work trump petty gossip. At first I believed the talks originated around people I was friends with for a long period of time, and so I tried my best to stay from those kinds of people. This led to nothing more than hate filled, lone-wolf Randy Orton who some claimed always bit more than he could chew. My desperation to separate myself from the 'pretty boy' stigma led me to annihilate a lot of good friendships and blow up a handful of helpful bridges, which landed me in front of a mirror of truth. And the truth was, I would have been lot better off had I just ignored the talks. Rather, I played right into them and ran aground with no place to go. And when you run aground because of your own blind stupidity, you meet a guy like Edge.

A mistake of the worst order.

Nevertheless, my situation now has nothing to do with Edge. I'd like to think so at least. However, maybe it does have something to with the Rated R Superstar. If I hadn't been so adamant to distance myself from a stereotype Michaels helped create, then I would never had met Edge and then – fast forward a couple years – I never would have had to be forcibly paired with the weirdest of the weird in Daniel Bryan. And in turn, Daniel Bryan would never have seen the need to put me through a fire of uncomfortable situations just to get me to like the idea of being in a team.

Strangely enough, thinking on it like this made it easy enough to talk about – but only to one, particular man.

"Ah, the ol' naked slumber act. Yes, yes I know it."

"You do?" I ask slightly shocked – more at the nonchalant response rather than the fact that Kane knew what I was talking about. "He did that to you too?"

"Are you kidding me?" Kane bellows before a heavy chortle, "Daniel wouldn't dare sleep naked beside me because he'd never wake up."

"But he said it built team spirit and that you and him used to sleep together like that in the early days of Team Hell No."

"Well we did sleep together, but don't let Daniel fool you." He looks to me with a smirk on his masked face, "It was only once, by accident, and it never truly helped our team."

"By accident?" I raised a strong eyebrow in question. "What… did he just trip and fall into bed with you one night?"

Kane laughs near manically, before leaning back onto the wall. "Oddly enough, that's exactly what happened." Kane glances to see my deepening confusion, "It happened about a week after our sessions with Dr. Shelby. Daniel was drinking erratically because some of the guys called him a pansy for letting his ex-fiance push him around. Daniel doesn't drink because of his low tolerance to alcohol, and even though I tried to tell him to stop, he pushed me aside and drank himself near death." A small smile crosses paths with Kane's mouth. "I carried him to his hotel room and tried to get him to lie down. But Daniel is like a Kung Fu master when he's drunk, so of course he fights me. We scuffle onto the floor before I manage to lift him up and toss him onto the bed. Daniel then grabs me and wraps me up in a devastating No Lock. I try to fight it, but his grip is like steel and eventually I pass out. The next day I woke up and found that we had slept in the same bed together."

In all honesty, even I'm flabbergasted by what I've just heard. None of Kane's story even remotely squares with mine, but in a way I'm glad it doesn't. However, this talk does little in helping me understand the madness that is Daniel Bryan, but I conclude then that his overgrown hair has, over time, sapped away his sanity , leaving him with a strange perception of the world and his place in it.

Or better yet, its just left him in an odd place when it comes to his idea of what the word team means.

* * *

There would have been days when I could have just said 'screw this' and walked away. I had done so back when I was in the Army. However, my reason for flipping them the bird and going AWOL was actually quite ethical. As much as I knew the world was a bad place, the Army took the meaning to another level. My final straw came when I watched my superior gather up some scared rookies and force them to do humanly demeaning acts to each other just for his own amusement. I brought the incidents up above my superior's head, but it fell on deaf ears and on empty desks. No one cared about what was happening to the men and women who came in with the ideal – much like myself – that the Army was about moral and team values. And so, I left the Army.

However, this was WWE. Leaving was out of the question, but when it came to my situations, I could have easily walked out on the confrontations and let them roll off my back much like guys like John Cena did. Rather, I forced myself into the hell-fire I had started and let my actions do all the talking and reasoning for me. Triple H – much like the Army – was about ethics, but then I lost sight of what those ethics were, and guys like Undertaker, Rey, Hogan and countless others were all just the fall out result of my mad chaos. Good guys who tried to mentor me, steer me correct, every single one of them flat lined beneath my speeding tires. Even John's hand of friendship was swatted away as I let anger consume every part of me until there was nothing left to call Randy Orton.

I think it was here that the fact that I didn't even own me anymore collided with my inability to stop myself from doing what I was doing, and made for the recipe of disaster that cooked up Edge being my light at the end of the tunnel. At this point, it's 2006. I'm at my wits end with no one in sight to help. Edge is just around the corner of his own hopelessness, and that's where we bump into each other. At first, I disdainfully declined the situation fate threw at me – refusing to accept that this is where I had ended up – but Edge's words brought back to life the meaning of team and partnership that I thought had been killed twice over by Evolution's betrayal.

October 2nd 2006 was the beginning of the end.

* * *

The week had been fairly successfully. According to Vince, my character had never been more interesting than it was now having been paired with Daniel, and subsequently being flung into the deeper end of the pool known as Team Hell No on the verge of on screen collapse. However, despite the sparked interest, I remain distanced from the possible successes of fully teaming with Daniel or allowing myself to be in anything related to that bearded goat.

My reasons are many, and they start with the motel, that kiss and then waking up to a naked Daniel Bryan. However, after talking to Kane, it seemed that just like when goat face put him in a drunken No Lock, Daniel never means any harm. A week has passed on by and I'm starting to believe it too. Ever since I stormed out of that dungeon-style motel, Daniel hasn't tried to reach out with his team building antics. It seems that Team Hell No staring at a collapse is far more entertaining as Team Hell No being a team. This is a story I know all too well. Evolution was amazingly successful, but it wasn't until we fell apart did people take a long haul interest in the group. Betrayal sells, but to the one betrayed, that means absolutely nothing, because to that guy, his former team mates weren't just his friends. They were his family. Ric was like a Dad to me. H was my mentor – the man I wanted to be. Dave was like a brother. Edge…Edge was closer than all three. Edge was something else. Something I once felt was irreplaceable.

Daniel on the other hand…I'd trade him for a day old gum beneath a stranger's shoe. Nonetheless, Daniel and Kane have been busy doing a lot of everything which left me with the seclusion I had come to know and love. But all good things must come to an end, and they do when we're suddenly petitioned to take on a real working engine in The Shield. These guys are the epitome of team, and make me wonder if we had kept it to three would Evolution have survived.

I shake the thought out of my head and focus on getting ready for the match. In my head I go over the match a million times – adding and subtracting moves and moments as I go along – while getting fully dressed. I reach down into my suitcase and in the moment feel the heavy weight of someone jump onto my back, and black out my vision .

"What the—"

"Guess who?" Rings in an annoying voice.

"Daniel, let him go." I hear Kane in the distance.

"Kane! Don't give me away like that!" Shouts the voice belonging to the one man able to rub me in all the wrong ways.

Immediately as he hopped on, he hops off my back allowing me to turn angrily and glare at him.

"What in the hell do you think you're doing Bryan?!" I bark through clenched teeth.

Daniel places his hands on the start of his hips and looks up at me with that goofy 'tsk' tsk' expression that would be smug had he had even a bone of real arrogance in him. "It's called playing Randy. It's something friends do, and something partners in a team do as well."

I close my eyes to swallow back my initial response, before staring at Bryan with a cool iciness that had become my choice expression over the years. "I don't play, and I'm not your friend or your partner."

"Well" He places a hand on my shoulder. Immediately I turn my glare sharply to it, before bringing it back slowly to him, "I guess we should do more playing around if we even hope to bring us together as proper team."

Confusion overcomes me. It's like he's speaking Latin or Icelandic. Either way, it sounds like garbage to me, so it flies through one ear and quickly out the other. "There is no we or us Bryan." I shove his hand off my shoulder, while leaning in closer to his face with a brutal glare trapped in the sockets of my eyeballs. "And if you even think of trying anything funny out there, I will drop you and you will not get back up."

Daniel looks on sternly for a moment before smiling, and resting both hands on both my shoulders. The action slaps the fire out of me. "Trust me, if we work together, we will beat the Shield tonight."

I had wanted to come back with a wicked reality check that while he wanted to beat those Hounds of Justice, I was rather okay with leaving him out in that ring to fend for himself. But Daniel broke the moment before it even came to my doorstep, and in an instant he grabbed the sides of my face and locked me in another surprise kiss. This time, I was better prepared to react which leads to me being able to shove him off. However I waste a perfectly splendid moment to knock him out cold when I lifted my hand to my own face and wipe my lips off in disgust. This gives Bryan the opportunity to dash for the door with Kane leaving shortly after.

* * *

I feel... exhausted.

This is what I want to tell John as he asks me with his million dollar smile how I've been these past few days. How I've been? I've been sent on a roller coaster ride of ire and beyond ire with every waking moment I spend in Daniel Bryan's presence. I'm constantly trying to fight the powers that be but to no avail. A goal-less Randy Orton doesn't sell quite as well as a goal orientated Randy Orton. Proof is in 2009 and the years before that. I can't argue with that kind of logic, but I damn sure still hate it.

Even now, as I sit down with my best friend for a rare moment where we can just hang out together, I find myself still fuming over thoughts of Daniel Bryan. At almost every moment the little man suckers me in by pushing my buttons, and the second I'm away from truly exploding he kisses me Then he leaves, or in the case of yesterday, he sticks around for a bit longer and then has the gall to sell me the whole 'let's sleep together to strengthen our team morale' shit – which is shit even more because I hate the idea of us teaming more than I did when Vince first pitched it to me. This predicament is the absolute worst seeing that not only have I lost count of how many sneak attack kisses this goat face man has landed on me, but now I can't seem to shake the taste of him off my lips. And it pisses me off.

"You're a horrible liar you know." I look up sharply to find John sitting in front of me with his kind expression acting as a cool sea breeze on a hot summer day.

"What?" I ask a bit out of my own skin. It feels like one moment I was with Daniel trying to fend for my sexuality, and then now I'm suddenly sitting across from John – whom I've been sitting across from for the majority of the night. "I said something?"

"Yeah." He chuckles to himself. "You say you're alright, but your mind keeps drifting." He leans in a bit closer – and inadvertently I shift a bit back. The second I do it, I correct myself having known that I only moved because my mind had once again drifted to Daniel Bryan. "What's really going on Randy? You're like a bottle of raw nerves nowadays."

I try to find something to prove otherwise, but fact is, John's right. "You're right." Cements the fact we both know, "It's this thing with Bryan."

"You mean your partnership with him?"

"Don't fucking say partnership" I growl agitatedly.

"Oh sorry Mr. Homophobe." He laughs lightly to my anger, "Calm down. Words have nothing to do with you being gay or not."

"I'm not." I state rather redundantly.

"I know." He shakes his head solemnly at me. "What I don't know is why you're acting so prickly over every little thing nowadays. I mean you're constantly irritated and easily annoyed, almost like you were back when you were with Edge." His tone softnes, "Come on man. Level with me."

I take a moment to look at the table top before sighing heavily and leaning back in my own chair. With an upright chin, I respond to the sky above. "I've always talked to you about whatever happens in my life John, and that's not about to change."

"Okay." He stresses obviously confused.

I sigh again before bringing my gaze back to him, "I've been blindsided over the years by countless people. People, especially, who call themselves my friend. Finally sick of it, I sat down and looked into myself to find out where the problem laid. What inside me made the people I trust the most so easily betray me and toss me aside?" I scoffed dryly, "To this day, I'm still looking for that answer, which is why I've closed myself up to the rest of the world in the meantime. I can't afford to get blindsided again while I'm out looking for what it is that caused me to believe whole-heartedly in those so-called friends." My jaw clenches for a moment as I force out the memories of what could have been had it not ended the way it did. "Daniel keeps taking a wrecking ball at me, like he's trying to break in and pull back out that naive and weak Randy Orton who'd be so easily swayed by words and a friendly smile."

"Well, maybe it's a good thing." John speaks kindly, "I mean, not many people know that you like romantic comedies, or that you like hiking , or that you'll be the first to gather a group of strangers and play football or some other activity with them. Not many people know the real you Randy, because you're always so adamant about keeping him hidden. So, maybe what Daniel is doing is the a good thing for you." He smiles slightly, "How about, one more time, you let go and let people see the real you, and I guarantee you'll find another great friend in Daniel."

John's words hold merit to me (a lot since not many people can boast such a fact) , but it doesn't make up for the fact that the void won't allow me to forget that promise I had made to myself the night I lay alone in a two bed hotel room nearly mummified in bandages, and scarred deep with hatred.

"The last time I did something like that" I start off in a low voice, "I was left for dead countless times, put in situations where I couldn't even hope to succeed, and then finally tossed aside with a three count." My eyes look back to John – who is no longer smiling. "I learned a lot of things in my life John, but the one thing that always stuck is that those who have my back only have it long enough to stab me in it."

Hurt streamlined across John's face as he looks at me in astonishment. "Does that apply to me too Randy?"

"That can't apply to you John, because I've never trusted my back to you." I look slightly to the left as his expression breaks down even further. "Not even once."

* * *

The truth hurts, but in the end, there isn't a damn thing anyone can do about it. I knew this the day Edge put me to the mat with a spear, and left me broken and defeated beneath the harsh arena lights. I knew this the moment Triple H turned his thumb down and stared into me with soulless eyes that took into no consideration our friendship. I knew this even back when I looked at my superior who simply walked on by as his lackeys beat into me their disdain for snitches. The truth always hurts, and for me, the truth only came at the brink of the betrayal. For some reason I had been born without the ability to foresee betrayal. I'd have my moments when I would realize something was off kilter – Batista looking at Triple H's gold, Edge being mysteriously dismissed from perilous states that left me to fend for myself time and time again – but I lacked the second part where my brain clicked and informed me that I was setting myself up for a letdown. After Edge, I promised myself that I would never again be taken in by cheap words, corny promises, and friendly smiles.

Daniel Bryan was full of all three. Here I had gone and flung him head first into the lion's mouth every chance I got, and instead of being irate with me, he goes and turns this on himself. Suddenly, Kane and I were subject to watching this once happy little man snap into fits of insanity as his mind toiled over the idea that somehow he was the weak link to our makeshift team. Kane was floored by Daniel's antics, even more so than I who had clearly told him to his face that I had purposefully shoved him into the fists of The Shield just because I hated his living guts. I had planned to simply get it all out in the open, stop playing games with Bryan and his long list of team-building antics, and instead tell him like it is.

The goat faced man took it out on himself. And even more surprisingly, he attacked me, in a 'good' way. Or as Kane would say, 'by accident'.

Now still on the high of Payback and inside the room shared only by Team HellNo, I sit on the edge of a slightly larger bed to look over at the now snoring pile of skin and overgrown hair, and I can't help but replay the incidents that left me in this predicament.

* * *

_"What were you thinking Randy?" He screamed angrily at me, "Why did you do that?"_

_"Kane you better hold onto your little gnome before he gets beat." I stated with a cold voice, while tending to the unraveling of the tape over my wrists._

_Kane steps in, "Daniel" He calls in gentle tone not befitting of his menacing attire, as he pulls on the smaller man's arm. "Come on. Just forget it and let's—"_

_"No!" Daniel shouts once more – this time his voice bounces off the walls of the locker room. "I want an explanation Randy! I've done everything to try and make us a workable team, and all you've done is thrown live grenades at the effort! And now you go out there and throw me under the bus?! What the hell is with you?"_

_I sigh loudly before looking up at him. His glare intensifies beneath the many shadows of his unkempt hair. "Don't act shocked Daniel. I've told you from day one that I am not your friend, your partner or your team mate. But you kept insisting on this make believe Team RKNO fantasy of yours, so you left me with no choice but to show you that I meant what I said. Just be glad that I didn't lead you to believe otherwise before I dropped you on your ass."_

_Daniel stands in anger at a true loss for words. The truth and reality of it all finally manage to invade that thicket of brainless optimism that he has been trying so hard to infect me with._

_"Now that this little stint is over," I continue in light of Daniel's reaction, "if you don't mind" I stand in the tight distance that separates us, "I'd like you to do what you should have done from day one. Stay outta my way."_

_The first thing to register in my mind was the right hand to the temple. From there it's all just kicks, screams, more punches, destroyed surroundings and a dozen faceless arms— then I'm not really sure._

* * *

"You know," From the corner of the room, Kane slinks from beneath the shadows. "I told Daniel about you the day Vince pitched the idea of teaming up to us. I warned him that you're not a team player, and that you had good reason not to be. But nobody tells Daniel Bryan no." He scoffs lightly to himself but doesn't smile in the least, "He was deadest on making it work with you, even though he knew your policy about trusting no one."

My eyes monitor Daniel Bryan from the clutches of an eerie stillness. "He was bound to fail, even without my trust issues."

"What makes you say that?"

"Where do I start?" I scratch the back of my neck in thought. "The kissing? The jumping into my bed stark naked almost every night? The constant attempts to hug me? The sticking close to me at all times? Daniel never stood a chance."

"I know." Kane looks to Bryan, "But I don't think I'm the only one who believes otherwise." He looks to me. "When did you realize it?"

I glance to Kane in thought before looking back to Daniel. "After our victory over The Shield this past Friday. I was pretty much a goner then. I actually started slipping long before that, but I refused to admit it. But, the fact remains that I just couldn't shake him from my mind in the least. No matter how much I thought on my past, his goofy, hairy face would just pop up right in there and disperse everything." My eyes wander back to Kane, "You've got a good friend here Kane."

Kane chuckled lightly, "There's no me or you Randy. There's only we and our." He smiles lightly, "We've got good friend here."

I pause for a moment, and look back to Bryan still snoring away from beneath his facial hair - oblivious to the fact that I've come by to apologize. "Yeah. We do."

* * *

I must have been ten feet in the filth of my bad luck when he found me. I must have looked like utter shit, but still he offered me his hand of friendship. A friendship, he said, that would transcend beyond our little group. A friendship I could count on in times of need, in times of joy. A friendship that always had my back.

The last time I looked up to the ceiling of an arena with any sort of feeling behind it was the moment Edge stood over me in celebration while he laid me to waste in a crushing defeat. In all my life I never once wanted anything. I always felt that I had everything I could possibly want – talent in the business I loved, a great family, best friends, a fat bank account, and a Hall Of Fame career – so I wanted nothing more. And it might have been that lack of drive that made me an easy target for back stabbers all the world, or it might have been my inability to sometimes judge the book by its cover…whatever the case, with a dozen knives of varying sizes stuck in my back and locked within a prison made from my own flesh, he still came on by and offered me his hand.

Normally the defeated would not say this, but right now I don't feel defeated. I feel a small victory despite having to tap out. First off, I got to experience first hand what Kane experienced that one accidental night, and I can tell all who ask that a drunken No Lock hurts far more than the usual brand. Secondly, I found that goal Vince kept nagging me to find. I might not be the good guy or I might just be the good guy, but whichever the case, I was that good a guy to help bridge the career of a fellow man, and probably many more in the future. Thirdly, was just that. My future. I actually began to think on it. But to his words, I even think beyond that. I think of our future – a future filled to the brim with a fulfilled promise of long term friendship void of any awkward situations and packed with the realness of me, and you and whoever else joined in on the fun.

Even though I've lost this match tonight, I feel none of the contempt I felt the night Edge pinned me, or the night Evolution turned on me, or the night my Army superior left me to die. I'm not exactly overjoyed – that takes some getting used to – but I'm beginning to understand your constant optimism. Hell, I'm beginning to fully grasp that whole stuff about 'building team spirit'. Having slept next to a butt-naked you, and having been jumped on and kissed by you countless times to the point where it no longer feels homosexual but rather friendly, walking up to you the victor and offering you that very same hand you had once offered me is nothing at all.

Looking at you, I can feel a sense of calm and relief in the knowing fact that as I leave this ring, a true evolution has taken place. And from its ashes, a new friendship has formed.


End file.
